Some people irritate us for reasons we cannot explain. This episode offers a Jewish framework for what is really happening, and a practical way to use it.

Adrienne Gold Davis tells the story of a rooftop dinner in Jerusalem, where a young speaker got under her skin until the woman beside her leaned over and said the speaker could have been Adrienne's daughter. What followed was an uncomfortable education in projection: judging in others what we have buried in ourselves.

For a Jewish approach to judgment, self-awareness, and loving your fellow as yourself, LISTEN, SUBSCRIBE, and SHARE.

The Rise & Shine Podcast Series is made possible by the generous support of Bonnie Vozar of Chicago, Illinois. If you would like to sponsor an upcoming podcast, please email us at [email protected]

If you have ever lain awake worrying that you are getting parenting wrong, this conversation is for you. Adrienne Gold Davis sits down with Dr. Michael Milobsky, a pediatrician with more than thirty years of experience and a father of seven, to sort the worries worth your energy from the ones you can put down.

They talk through the fears that follow us from infancy onward: missed milestones, sleep, picky eating, screens, and the pressure of raising kids in an age of constant information. Milobsky offers a steadying frame borrowed from child development: parents are shepherds, not engineers. Your job is love, protection, and the right environment, not turning your child into someone they were never built to be.

The deeper thread is one every parent will recognize: so much of what unsettles us in our children points back to our own unfinished work.

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Learn more about Dr. Milobsky:

Your child's teacher spends more waking hours with them than almost anyone outside your home. Adrienne Gold Davis opens Season 30 of Rise & Shine with a case for putting the bar back up: the honor Jewish tradition asks us to give our parents extends to the people who teach our children. She also shares the pediatrician's line that reframes why your well-behaved student falls apart the moment he walks in your door. 

What if getting older is not about losing who you were, but discovering who you are still becoming?

In this episode of Rise & Shine, Adrienne Gold Davis shares seven lessons she has gathered with age: stay hungry for wisdom, tell yourself the truth, stop running from discomfort, love people without demanding sameness, and protect your peace without losing your humanity.

The Rise & Shine Podcast Series is made possible by the generous support of Bonnie Vozar of Chicago, Illinois. If you would like to sponsor an upcoming podcast, please email us at [email protected]

Is it ever okay to step back from a parent? In this episode of Rise and Shine, Adrienne Gold Davis explores one of the most painful and least-discussed questions in Jewish family life: what to do when a relationship with a parent becomes harmful. Drawing on Bowen Family Systems Theory alongside Jewish teaching on honoring parents, Adrienne unpacks why complete cutoff often isn't resolution so much as a quieter form of the same conflict, and why generational patterns repeat until someone chooses to interrupt them. She shares Jewish sources on the limits of the obligation to honor a parent, and makes the case that protecting your well-being and your children's well-being can itself be an act of honor, not a betrayal of it. 

The Rise & Shine Podcast Series is made possible by the generous support of Bonnie Vozar of Chicago, Illinois. If you would like to sponsor an upcoming podcast, please email us at [email protected]

How can we relate to the loss of the ancient temple when we never knew it in the first place?

Gratitude is not only a feeling. In Jewish life, it is a practice woven into the day from the moment we wake.

In this episode of Rise and Shine, Adrienne shares a personal story: months of caring for her husband through a frightening illness, the fear that came with it, and the renewed gratitude that followed his recovery.

Every child carries something precious inside, even when the world cannot see it yet.

In this episode of Rise and Shine, host Adrienne returns to the teaching of the Lubavitcher Rebbe that every soul is a diamond, infinitely valuable and waiting to be polished until its light shines through. Drawing on the story of Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan, Adrienne explores a truth at the heart of Jewish parenting: latent potential cannot emerge until someone believes it exists. She weaves together Jewish wisdom on the soul, the idea of being a "speaking soul," and what it means to recognize the hidden worth in the people we love most. For Jewish mothers, it is a reminder that believing in their child is a quiet form of leadership in its own right, one that shapes who they become.

Repair is possible, even when parenting feels painful, complicated, or far from what we imagined. In Part 2 of this special Rise and Shine episode, Adrienne continues her conversation with Momentum Educators Ruchi Koval and Jael Toledo about Jewish motherhood, adult children, family dynamics, grief, and repair. This conversation explores what happens when children make choices that challenge our expectations, including choices around Jewish identity, Israel, relationships, family traditions, and independence. Ruchi and Jael offer honest, compassionate guidance on listening to understand, managing anxiety, setting healthy boundaries, and taking our own pain to the right places so our children are not asked to carry it.

Motherhood often comes with a deep desire to protect and hold everything together, but what happens when our children need us to step back? In this first part of a special Rise and Shine episode, Adrienne Gold-Davis introduces the parenting practice of “watch, wait, wonder".

Together with Momentum Educators, Ruchi Koval and Jael Toledo explore radical acceptance, parenting anxiety, the instinct to save, solve, fix, and the difference between real safety concerns and fear-driven control. With warmth, honesty, and practical insight, this conversation invites Jewish mothers to consider how letting go can create more connection, resilience, and trust within the family.